Monday, April 4, 2011

Out-Of-This-World Revelations

I find it quite amazing that the human race is progressing, in terms of acquiring knowledge, at exponential rates in recent years. Just a few decades ago, decent computers were the size of an entire room; mobile phones were only fictional items; we did not know very much about the universe beyond Pluto.

These days, powerful computers are very small and portable; people can surf the net via their mobile phones; and scientists are able to arrive at a learned estimate of the number of planets in our galaxy. Furthermore, they've estimated that there are 500 million planets in our galaxy alone which are potentially habitable. Amazing when you come to think of the scale of progress we've achieved within just the last 50 years!

If we can keep it going for the next 50 years—and I can't see why not—imagine how much more knowledge we would've gained by then. Although it's rather too ambitious, it's not impossible to send manned spacecrafts out to at least the planets within our own solar system. Who knows, maybe we would've progressed so far in genetic science by then to the extent that we're able to expand lifespan to a few hundred years for each human; which in turn can make space travel possible. Either that or we're able to invent very fast spacecrafts to cut down travelling time. In fact, it's entirely possible that geneticists could play around with the human DNA for a bit so that they could, for example, make the brains of politicians grow in the skull instead of the rectum. The way I see it, the possibilities are limitless!

But of course not all of us will progress so quickly. As I have said before, not all of us are born geniuses. Some of us are still preoccupied with our little world under the coconut shell; our visions are limited to the size of that shell. These creatures invest their time analysing seemingly petty matters, and then arrive at unfathomable conclusions. They see elements of Christianity in the poco-poco and deem the dance haram to the Muslims. Maybe they, too, can get some help from the geneticists I speak of in the preceding paragraph, I don't know.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Your predictions won't come true because we will have blown the whole planet and ourselves to pieces way before that.

Cornelius said...

Tekko,

Humans are of course very destructive creatures. But in spite of our natural talent in destroying this planet, I have faith that we will prevail somehow. I'm confident that we would survive at least the new few hundred years from now. And I'd say it's not impossible that we may be able to achieve space travels by then. Well, maybe not the kind of travels like we see in Star Wars.

Only thing that can stop us from achieving all those is natural disaster like major tsunamis or collisions with meteors etc. I just hope it won't happen during my lifetime... haha!

Anonymous said...

I symphatised with those in authority that felt Poco Poco has element of Christianity because the steps for the dance marks a cross. These poor people would be stuck at CROSS roads as they would be marking the sign of a cross if they move their car.

JKR now has the task of change all cross road intersections to round-a-bout.

And the Chinese character for number 10 has to be changed.

Cornelius said...

Anonymous friend,

I think the trouble with most religious people is that they are always barking up the wrong tree. Always, the emphasis is on the surface, not so much on what's in the core.

And this reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend some years ago. We were talking about that famous singer Cat Stevens, the man who embraced Islam and gave up his singing career. I commented that if he had continued singing, it wouldn't have meant that he did not love god. My friend said that he did not want people to admire him, and love him. Because we are all supposed to idolise god, not man.

I don't know if that was really from Yusuf Islam himself. But I would think that the two scenarios can't be the same. One is admiration in the materialistic sense; whereas the other is in the spiritual sense.

I think it doesn't really matter if Poco Poco was a religious dance or not, Christian or not. The question is whether the person dancing is doing it and meant it in the religious sense.

It doesn't really matter if one wears a football jersey with a cross on it. It doesn't mean that that person meant that jersey as a religious costume. It doesn't matter if a Muslim enters a church, because that in itself does not mean that he believes in Christianity. Religious people should learn to appreciate what's in the heart, not focus too much on the surface.